'Mandela' screenwriter says '12 Years a Slave' ruined his film

The man who wrote the screenplay for "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" says "12 Years a Slave" is why his movie didn't win any awards.

This gets better.

According to the Guardian, William Nicholson recently told an audience at the British literary convention Hay festival that director Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave" "sucked up all the guilt about black people that was available."

Told you.

"I think it worked superbly," Nicholson said about his film. "(But Americans) were so exhausted feeling guilty about slavery that I don't think there was much left over to be nice about our film. So our film didn't do as well as we'd hoped, which was a bit heartbreaking."

Idris Elba as Nelson Mandela in "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom." (Keith Bernstein/Weinstein)

Right. It probably has nothing to do with the film being slightly boring.

Nicholson also said Mandela's death affected the film.

"We were deluged with Mandela stuff, and after a week we all thought, 'Please take it away, we've heard enough about Mandela,'" he said.

Right. Who does that Mandela guy think he is, dying just in time to ruin William Nicholson's movie?

Apparently on a roll, Nicholson also said Mandela's speeches were "boring."

"All but one (of the speeches in the movie) were made up by me because his own are so boring," he said. "I know it sounds outrageous to say a thing like that, but when he came out of prison he made a speech and, God, you fell asleep."

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